10 years of ArtPrize critique and resistance

It has been 10 years since Rick DeVos announced that he and his family’s money (Dick & Betsy DeVos have bankrolled ArtPrize) would be hosting an annual event in downtown Grand Rapids, known as ArtPrize.

We have written about this event from the beginning, offering a critique of the monied spectacle, which uses artist labor and public resources that primarily benefit private wealth.

Early on it became clear that the local news media would not offer any sort of scrutiny of the annual event, instead they became cheerleaders and collaborators. Some years we even tracked election coverage and compared it to ArtPrize coverage. ArtPrize garnered more coverage than representative democracy.

We have also documented to benefits from the annual monied spectacle and we have posted artist responses to ArtPrize.

As the annual event gets ready to kick-off, we simply wanted to provide our readers with several of the articles we have written over the years, to provide some context for why it is important to critique and resist this monied spectacle.